Jesus’ description of himself as the Good Shepherd is matched by his periodic description of people as sheep. At times the animals, and therefore people, are described as faithful and innocent and at other times a bit gullible, if not stupid. This Sunday, sheep are described as faithfully hearing their shepherd’s voice calling out to them. The shepherd then “walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger,” Jesus says. “They will run away from a stranger.”
One influential and quite diversionary stranger for self titled Christians who is collecting many gullible, if not stupid, sheep is the white supremacist. The white supremacist is unfortunately not a stranger to institutional Christianity, neither to Catholics nor Protestants. In particular, U.S. Protestantism has routinely diverted people from Jesus and toward a nationalist white supremacy. Their diversion toward nationalist white supremacy is proposed to be the result of both the slave holding founding fathers and the Protestant frontier religious populism in both the North and the South. Frontier evangelists promoted white supremacist racial ideology and sanctified slavery. President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was a primary promoter and beneficiary of that racist ideology. Jackson waged war on Africans and Natives. His military domination forced more Africans into slavery and forced more Native Americans from their lands. Slaveholders and Indian killers like Jackson were acclaimed heroes. They were upstanding members of government and of mainline Protestant churches. The seventh President has been in the news of late. The current president who can be described as a ‘Bad Shepherd’ with gullible if not stupid sheep, recently put a new portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. The new president is promoting and benefiting from that same white supremacist racial ideology. Mainline Protestantism through its churches is again accommodating to this new white supremacist president. As mainline Protestantism is no stranger to white supremacy, neither is Evangelical Protestantism. They are diverting people from Jesus and from his witness of communion and toward white supremacist nationalism. As in the era of the founding fathers and the era of the Jackson administration, as well as other eras, so again, white supremacists are currently holding place as upstanding members of government and of Evangelical Protestant churches. Catholics too make strange bedfellows. Catholic Steve Bannon is also promoting and benefiting from Trump’s white supremacist nationalism. Neo-Nazis emboldened by their racist president and his racist team also proudly and routinely feature portraits of Andrew Jackson. The Jackson portraits are often accompanied by a racist quote from Mr. Bannon: “Like Andrew Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement.”
White evangelical self titled christians are the ‘stranger’ Jesus warned people about in the Gospel. Take heed.
Prayer: Spirit, guide us as good shepherds for people who have followed strangers.
Question: In what ways do I stray toward a stranger’s call?
May 07, 2017 Gospel John 10:1-10 4th Sunday of Easter